


Filter

by Hokuto



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Swearing, Tex Appreciation Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3992887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tex, between the crash and Blood Gulch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Filter

One thing the UNSC isn't short on is ex-spec ops running around for hire, most of them with variations on black armor, so hers doesn't stand out. One of the many, many things it is short on is good radio equipment, especially in the fringe colonies where she ran after the _Mother of Invention_ crashed, and that's working out pretty good for her, too; about the only thing that distinguishes voices over bad comms is deep/high and accent. No one sees her face (what face?), no one's going to recognize her voice, so, you know, she's pretty much got it made. Except that she's got no name, she's stuck in the fuck-end of nowhere taking shitty jobs for shitty pay, and when she gets hit she has to rig her own repairs with whatever bargain bin materials she can grab, which is doing a number on her effectiveness. She can still kick human or alien ass six ways to Sunday, but she's not the heavy who knocked Maine, York, and Wyoming flat on their backs anymore.

It's bugging her.

And it's not the only thing. She left a lot of unfinished business back in central UNSC space. Not just the Project, though she's still itching to teach a couple of cockbites why you shouldn't treat an AI with a top of the line robot body and an anger problem like a pawn, but there's still a war with the aliens on, and maybe there's the Innies, who weren't all a convenient lie for the Director. What she's fighting out here is a holding pattern, and it's not satisfying when she's capable of so much more - especially if she can get her hands on the good tech to replace her duct-tape-and-a-dash-of-paint fixes.

Also: O'Malley. She can't pull him anymore, there's no point; he just jumps back in the moment he's out, and the line between his rage and hers is so fine by now that not even an angel could tap-dance on it. Of course, he doesn't give a crap about the war, but he sure doesn't mind taking his aggression out on whatever's closest, and she'd rather have "whatever's closest" be enemies than allies.

She hitches a ride on a cargo ship with a bandit-fearing captain and starts working her way back towards the real front lines, one job at a time.

Halfway back, on Abraxas 8 - a jumped-up mining colony on a blue gas giant's moon, nothing she hasn't seen a dozen other places - she's trying to barter her mechanical experience for a new battle rifle before the next supply run to Antares when the guy she's talking to says, "Freelancer, eh? One of those guys with the funny old Earth codenames?"

O'Malley lunges for his throat before she throttles him down, and there's nothing to show but a twitch in her fingers as she says, "Nah, the regular kind. You get the others out here?"

"Uh-huh!" pipes up the girl who's been eavesdropping while she was supposed to be demonstrating how to install armor upgrades to another customer. "Well, only one, but he was super badass! All mysterious and stuff, and he had _wicked_ armor - gray and yellow, super striking. What did he say his name was? Washington? _So_ cool."

Wash had impressed them? Wash, the team buttmonkey? He'd impressed these hicks? But that's a reaction subroutine running way below a hundred warning flags. She hadn't figured she'd be back within Project Freelancer operating range for another few light-years, but looks like they've expanded recently. Well, crap. Good thing she's still not giving out a name or she could be in trouble already.

She takes her elbows off the counter and says casually, "You got a problem with aliens, then?"

"Not yet, Allah be praised," the guy says. "It was something else he was looking for, I don't remember what. Equipment, maybe, but he didn't buy anything."

Crap. Of course they want their fucking armor back, not just her. There's another cruiser leaving on a supply run tomorrow, heading for some dinky outer rim hole called Chorus; she'll lose nothing but the two hours she's already spent realigning weapon sights on the Antares ship if she cancels and catches that ship instead. Return to no name, no pressure, no strings attached.

The girl at the other end of the counter plops the helmet over her head and intones, "Boo, motherfucker!" in an artificially deep, hoarse voice. The man she's selling to takes a step back, and someone in the back room shouts, "Nene, what have I told you about cursing at customers!"

"So, you sell voice filters, too?" she asks the guy.

He shrugs and picks at the black polish on his nails. "We might. Got a few crates of them in, but no one's biting except kids who want to play pranks. So far. You want one?" He waves vaguely at the door to the back room. "Tell you what, you get the loading bot fixed before closing time, I'll throw one in with the battle rifle. No charge."

O'Malley grumbles about murdering them all and looting the store, but that's what he always wants to do. Everything's kill or be killed to him - not that she doesn't understand the feeling, or where it came from.

"Deal," she says.

The captain of the supply ship for Antares doesn't blink at her new voice when she boards. Good. She doesn't need questions, just the ride.

Some things she'd never had a choice about. A lot of things, actually. Despite its name, Project Freelancer had been real big on "do what you're told, don't ask questions," and knowing no better, she'd gone along with it all. Out here she's had plenty of choices, but some things are written in root code, in the memory of bones and instinct. The gift of duty from a woman who'd always done hers.

Fight. Win. And if you have to run - you come back and repay the fuckers double.

The voice filter's not going to disguise her for long, but it doesn't have to. She just has to find the right Freelancer base before they find her, and then she's going to show those sons of bitches why you don't mess with Tex.


End file.
